Born of Dragons
by AceWithACase
Summary: The truth of the past is rarely ever told. To survive, secrets must be kept at all costs. Fairy Tail's resident pyro knows this better than anybody. In order to remain with his chosen family, one thing must never be known: Dragon Slayers are not as they appear. But all truths are unveiled eventually, welcome or not. And this truth can kill.
1. Prologue: The Hatchling

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.

Okay, this is an idea I've been playing around with for a while, and thought I'd try out. To my knowledge, there isn't a fanfic like this up yet, so hopefully it's something that somebody else besides me would be interested in reading.

Warning to the readers, though: This fanfic will have AU/AR material in it. It will still largely follow the plotline from the anime/manga, but I will be taking quite a few liberties as the author to change things/make shit up - mostly in the dragon department.

BASIC IDEA: Natsu isn't really what he seems.

This will just be a _very _short prologue, kind of just to test the waters.

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><p><strong><span><em>Born of Dragons<br>_**_A Fairy Tail AU fanfic_

**Prologue  
>The Hatchling<span>**

How long had it been since he had last seen anybody worthy of his presence?

The others of his kind had flown off long ago, off to hide in their own little areas that offered them the best chances for food and survival.

And he, like an idiot, had chosen a forest, where there was no fire to fill his belly, no flames to quench his thirst. All he had was meat which, while delicious in its own right, was nowhere near as satisfying as a good forest fire.

But if he set the forest on fire one more time in an attempt to somehow produce flames he could _actually eat, _the locals would probably get pissed and try to get the forest "exercised of it's demons" again.

Honestly. Were humans so stupid they didn't know a dragon when they saw one?

Of course, he never really let the humans see him. He wasn't an idiot. He knew who had been at fault for the rapid decline of the dragon race, chased to near extinction. He knew the reason his kind had become a mere myth after just a century or so of absence.

Humans, and their greed and lust for power.

It _really _made him angry.

Angry enough to subconsciously set the tree to his left on fire. Whoops.

After carefully stamping out the forest fire-in-the-making - one he _couldn't eat, damn it - _ he continued on his way, wings tucked in tight, head and shoulders held low.

It still amazed him that he, the mighty Igneel, had been reduced to nothing more than a slinking alley dog, sustaining himself on the scraps of humanity and desperately attempting to stay out of the sight of the two-legged beings in what was, to him, an eye-blink of time.

He _really _should have just flown away to a volcano like Atlas had suggested. The bastard.

Too late now.

Still, sometimes he toyed with the idea of taking flight, stretching wings that had, for so long, not tasted the cool breezes of the wind. It would be a simple thing, to fly again, but with potentially dangerous consequences. But the potential rewards very nearly outweighed the risks.

The dragon race was dying out, balancing on the edges of collapse and extinction. He couldn't remember the last time an egg had hatched safely, let alone a female become pregnant. The last eggs had been lost over a century ago, smashed apart by the Old Dragon Slayers, the Original Dragon Slayers, in search of defenseless dragonlings and their powerful hearts. After that, the dragons left had been too few and far between to make an attempt to produce any more eggs, all dragons near enough to one another to make the attempt either not of the correct biological gender, or not near enough in element. Igneel himself knew he had used to live near a Water Dragon female, but knew that any relationship between each other would not produce any offspring. He had not heard from her for a few decades, anyhow. Perhaps she, too, had been killed, long-since dead and gone.

He huffed out a sigh. He, the mighty Igneel, was moping. No, he wasn't going to deny it. He was by no means young - by the standards of the humans, dragons, or any other creature - and he still remembered when dragons had been as numerous in the skies as the birds were themselves.

Until the Old Dragon Slayers had discovered just how powerful a dragon's heart could really be.

Igneel could hear even now the hysterical sobs of dragonlings, pulled from the corpses of the mothers or ripped, underdeveloped, from the shards of their smashed eggs. Could hear them wail with pain and fear as their hearts were torn from their chests, still beating, life still coursing through their veins even as the knife bit into their soft scales...

No, wait. That wasn't a dream. That was an actual cry he had heard, an actual scream.

And even though it sounded decidedly human, he was off like a rocket, bounding through the forest and not caring how many creatures he trampled. The ground itself shook as Igneel, King of the Fire Dragons, once again claimed a purpose, even if it was just for a few moments.

Humans were almost pitifully small when compared to him. A full-sized human could fit in his mouth with almost no problem. Hardly even a snack. However, the five bandits he nearly crushed in his rush to reach the sound of the wail would make a decent snack, should he catch them all.

One bare of his teeth and a vicious snarl, and the five humans were tearing off through the undergrowth, terrified shrieks and calls for their mothers flying from tongues that usually spouted such confident and vulgar things.

Igneel briefly entertained the idea of giving chase, hunting down the bandits swiftly and turning them into his next midday snack, but one choked sob and he knew he had found the source of the little cry that had spurred him into action.

And little it was.

Very, _very _little.

Curled at his feet, a fraction of a scale away from being impaled by a claw, was a little human hatchling, no older than four winters at best. He was a little thing, about as big as one of his talons - small, even for a four-year-old human. His hair was unruly, matted, and pink, like the sky surrounding a setting sun in the midst of summer. Dirt and blood caked his little naked body, leaving barely a patch of skin uncovered.

Who would leave their child so far out in the forest, where demons were said to roam?

But one sniff and Igneel knew that no parent had left their child here. The child was wild-born, perhaps never having lived in human civilization. This area of the forest, however small, had been the child's territory, and once intruded upon by the bandits, had been defended.

Up until the point where a bandit had driven a knife into the poor child's shoulder, of course, which had been the reasons for the cries that had brought Igneel charging in.

Even still the knife stuck out from the boy's shoulder, the way he was curled on his side causing the handle to press into his dirty cheek.

For a while, Igneel stood there, unsure what to do. He didn't really have experience with humans, and _definitely _had no knowledge on how to handle a small one that did not know the kindness of a mother or father. A singular twitch on Igneel's part sent the child flying into a defensive crouch, a wild snarl silently twisting his face, his eyes such a dark green they were hardly discernible from the black of his sharp pupils. He made no move to try and utilize the blade in his shoulder as a weapon, instead leaving it there in favor of bringing up hands with jagged nails as his means of defense.

Did the little thing mean to fight him to protect his territory? A brave thought on the child's part, but a stupid one. Could he not see that Igneel was larger and stronger than he? Or was the child, raised away from any type of influence whatsoever, incapable of using logic?

A twig snapped behind the child, perhaps stepped on by a deer, but the sound was all that was needed for the child to scramble behind one of Igneel's legs, peeking out from behind with a teeth-bared growl.

And that is when Igneel was finally able to sense it, in such close proximity to the boy. Only then was he able to smell it under the layers of grime that smeared his skin.

_'A child of Boltra? And of Combusreel?' _Igneel twisted his neck to peer at the boy in bewilderment. _'A crossbreed?' _He had never before seen one, only heard of them from the stories of old. He was under the impression that any crossbreed born would be sacrificed, whether through outright killing or throwing into the wild to-

...oh.

That would make sense, if everything hadn't been made so needlessly complicated so long ago.

Igneel stepped away from the child, who once again seemed to realize that Igneel was there. And there went the growl again, a wordless threat to Igneel that the child would fight for his territory.

Instead of presenting any sort of challenge to the boy, Igneel turned and began to make his way back through the path he had torn through the trees. Now that the bandits had seen him, they were sure to go back and warn the nearest village. This forest was no longer safe for him.

Finding a new one without being spotted was sure to prove tedious.

Igneel could hear the pitter-patter of bare feet on dirt within moments of leaving the boy's territory. Oh, that wouldn't do. Stealth would be the first thing that he would teach the little hatchling. No pupil of Igneel should make such a racket when walking uncontested on _dirt._

But the hatchling _was _following,that much Igneel knew. He had been sure the boy would follow, instincts pulling the hatchling towards the towering Fire Dragon. Being correct, no matter how sure it had been in the first place, still stroked Igneel's ego nicely. But ego-stroking could be saved for later. Until then, he had new home to find, and a hatchling to look out for.

After all, monsters were drawn towards other monsters, and no matter how wild-raised the hatchling was, no matter how scary and big the red behemoth was, his instincts demanded that he follow.

And so he did.

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><p>Prrrrrrologue.<p>

I've been playing _Infamous: Second Son _for the past like three hours and now I really want to write a fic for that, too. What the hell.


	2. Chapter 1: Beginning to Stumble

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.

So far I've gotten very positive feedback from you all. Thank you so much!

I'm a sucker for a nice review, which is probably why I got this chapter finished so quickly. It generally takes me a week or two to get a chapter I'm comfortable enough with the post.

That being said, I didn't really like how this chapter turned out too much...but you can retype a chapter only so many times before wanting to move on. That number is apparently seven.

Also, in other news, I read on the Fairy Tail wikipedia up until where the manga has reached and I now regret my decision and my entire life. I now need to go curl into a ball and cry because of this crisis and emotion I am having. My little sister, who I texted the info to, is now sitting in her class and crying while her friends laugh. I am a good older sister. Take that, midget.

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 1<br>Beginning to Stumble**

**_:::Fairy Tail, Magnolia:::_**

"ASSHOLE!" _BANG! _Gray was laid out flat, his cheek glowing a cherry red, fresh from the fist that had flown into his face.

The black-haired mage popped right back up with a hand pressed against the smarting side of his head. "What the hell, bastard?!" he cried, taking a wild swipe at the one that had attacked him. The rose-haired youth ducked around the wide attack with practiced ease, the grasping fingers getting nowhere near their half-intended target.

"Oh, _I'm _the bastard?! Look at this!" Natsu Dragneel, the resident pyromaniac presented for Gray's inspection a pancake with a quite lovely footprint stamped right in the middle, curtesy of one ice-make mage who thought walking upon the table would be quicker than upon the floor. "I was gonna eat that!"

"You still can. Looks better than the garbage you usually eat," Gray sneered.

"Boys, you aren't _fighting, _are you?" the master of the Fairy Tail Guild called from his customary place on the bar, using his staff to play one very drunk Cana in a chess match. Oddly enough, he was still losing.

"Not at all, Gramps," Natsu said, not moving his heated gaze from Gray's own chilled one. "Gray was just saying how much he liked hotcakes." Natsu had never looked quite as sinister as he did in that moment, a single twitch of an eyebrow setting the pancake ablaze.

Without further ado, Natsu whipped his hand forward, frisbeeing the plate and flaming pancake right at Gray's face. With a girlish shriek with a pitch that no man should be able to achieve - and one that Gray would later deny - the ice-make mage took off at a dead sprint from the hellish breakfast food, nearly bowling Levy over in the process.

Without Erza there to "calm the situation," there was nobody to stop Natsu and Gray from starting a full-out brawl in the Guild, and start a brawl they did.

Natsu was in the process of having a fist full of ice crammed down his throat - and trying to see how much of his own foot he could force into Gray's own mouth - when a certain word got his attention, causing him to freeze and nearly lose his grip on Gray's throat.

He flipped Gray off of him with ease, the ice in his throat melting to water in seconds as he adjusted his internal body temperature. He was at the sides of two mages that had managed to stay out of the brawl in seconds, leaping right over the fray that took over half of the Guildhall.

"What'd you say?" Natsu demanded of the two men, slamming a fist on the table for extra but unneeded emphasis. "Salamander. You said "Salamander?""

"Yeah," one of the two men, Krov, said with a furrowed brow. "But we weren't talking about you." Niggy pat Natsu on the back with a chuckle.

"Looks like someone's trying to steal your name, Natsu, and all the glory that goes with it."

"I don't care. Salamander is a stupid nickname anyway. No, wait. Someone's using my name? Who?"

Krov shrugged. "I dunno, man. It's just something I heard along the grapevine. That there's some guy that specializes in fire magic going by the name of "Salamander," claiming to be of relation to Fairy Tail, who's going around wooing all the ladies." Krov wiggled his eyebrows with a grin, his massive buck teeth catching the light in a way that was by no means attractive. He looked more like a cartoon character than anything else, one of the little drawings in the newspaper that amused the younger children every Sunday.

"Where?" Natsu demanded. "Where is this "Salamander" at right now?" It had to be a coincidence. There was _no way. _If it was actually _him, _then there wouldn't be reports of "some fire guy" coming in. There would be screaming and terror and Natsu would be spouting off many "I told you so"s.

"I dunno."

Natsu's left eye twitched. The wood around his hand that was still in contact with the table began to smoke, the fine wood finish bubbling around and beneath his palm, the wood beneath beginning to blacken.

"I really don't! Last I heard, this guy was heading towards Hargeon Town from the railway station by Shirotsume, but on that line, he could have gotten anywhere in Fiore!" Krov cried, recoiling away from the warping and burning wood, bringing hands up to defend himself in case Natsu got any more impatient and decided to throw a fist.

But the strike never came. Natsu straightened his back, his eyes fixed on a point on the far wall. "Happy!" he called, his voice cutting through the din of the brawl like a knife through butter.

"Aye!" the little blue cat chirped in reply, swooping down from where he had been munching on a fish in the safety of the rafters, white, fluffy wings silently gathering air to slow his fall. He landed on Natsu's shoulder with practiced precision, his wings retreating back underneath the cloth he used as a sort of backpack.

Without even a word stating his departure, he marched right out of the Guildhall, the only ones noticing his leaving remaining silent on the matter.

Makarov shook his head in silence, though whether the action was brought on by some thought on Natsu's behavior, or because he had just been forced into "check mate" by a woman drunk off her ass, who really knew?

**_:::Magnolia Railway Station:::_**

"Ah, crap, I have to take a train?" Natsu whined, wilting as he stared at the board of train departure times. He had been hoping, upon his arrival at the railway station, that there wouldn't be a train leaving soon enough for Hargeon, and that he would be "forced" to walk to the town instead of ride in a mode of _transportation. _

Ugh, the thought was downright sickening.

But with a train leaving in five minutes, he had no real reason to deny the easier and faster transport. Even if it meant an hour of agonizing betrayal on behalf of his own stomach.

"You could always just fly there," Happy pointed out, head resting on his friend's shoulder.

"In broad daylight? Not gonna happen," Natsu halfheartedly shot down the idea. Not like he hadn't considered it already. Getting blasted from the sky by frightened citizens would _still _be preferable over a train.

It looked like his best option was to just suck it up and take the train. Who knew? Maybe the crimson coat he now wore, given to him by Levy, with the promise that an old magic that was supposed to help with motion sickness was worked into the material, would help with his affliction.

Or, as Levy had warned him, it may just make it worse. The spell never specified whether it was for all modes of transportation, or just one specific one.

Also, it wasn't fire proof. So no setting himself on fire.

Damn.

**_:::Hargeon Town, One Hour Later:::_**

"Damn you, Levy," Natsu moaned, lurching from the train with a hand placed carefully on his upset stomach, his face an interesting shade of green. He glared as best as he could at his jacket. "You, too. You suck." He groaned once more, bending in half at the waist in a futile attempt to shield his abdomen. Unfortunately, it was being attacked from within, and curling into a ball would offer no protection. "Everything sucks. Bite me, universe."

And it _really _hadn't helped that the train had taken off before he could get himself out the first time.

Maybe next time he would take Happy's advice, and just _fly _home. It wasn't that far. He'd have to wait for dark, though. No need to go scaring any of the locals. Again.

Damn it all.

"This was a bad plan..." he groaned, his pace more befit a man that had spent his entire night in a bar - or Cana - instead of a teen that had just climbed out of a train. He slapped a hand over his mouth. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"I don't think the locals would be happy if you vomited lava all over and set a house on fire again, Natsu," his constant feline companion reminded him, trotting right along as if he didn't have a care in the world, which he probably didn't, considering he was a cat.

Natsu clapped his hands over his ears with a whine. "Don't say the "v" word, bud, or I'm gonna do it."

Even with his hands over his ears, though, he still heard the loud, high-pitched squeals from down the road. A deaf man could have heard them, in all honesty.

"Salamander!"

Once again, all reason left Natsu as if it had never been there to begin with, and he took off at a jog. To hell with the idea that Natsu would have _seen _his father already from this distance. Maybe he had found a way to take on human form, which would really solve all of Natsu's problems in, like, point-seven seconds-

"Igneel!"

Ew. No. That wasn't Igneel. Just some pompous guy that didn't know what the nickname "Salamander" really implied.

Also, he was _way _too human to be Igneel. Still, though...

"Who the hell are you?"

All of the women around him screeched out in indignation, demanding that he respect such a powerful and prominent wizard. Pff. He was Salamander, too, and he didn't have a fan club following _him _around. Not that he wanted one, and not that one actually _would. _They would all lose their lives way too quickly from all of the collateral damage he caused.

And Erza thought he had no idea how much destruction he brought upon town after town on a daily basis.

The guy smelled weird, too. Human, yes, no doubt about it. But there was some second scent that clung to his own, one that Natsu felt should have been familiar, and was a bit, but was still completely unrecognizable. For some reason, the scent made his heart skip a beat, and his nose burn. Odd. Oh well. Like hell he was going to try to solve one mystery when he was already on a mission to solve another.

By the time the stupid-haired man had begun to form his response - playing with one of those rings on his hand again, too. Weird - Natsu had already spun around, throwing his hands up in dismay.

"Well, that was a bust." Seriously. He had expected the search of Hargeon to take a day, at least. Not an hour. And now he had to get onto a train again. Crap.

His stomach growled loudly, and he punched at it in annoyance.

"Oh like hell I am feeding you before I get back on that speeding metal death trap you stupid son of a bitch." Natsu wilted. "It's not like I have any money, anyway." In his haste to leave the guildhall he had, like an idiot, forgotten his little bag of jewels that he brought with him on jobs. He had just enough in his pockets to barter his way on to the train, anyhow, and it was already going to be a hassle trying to buy his way back _on _to the train.

"I think I can help you out with that," a voice said from behind him. And lo and behold, it was that blonde girl he had practically bulldozed on order to get an eyefull of fake-Salamander back in the town square. She held up a thin wad of jewels, a tentative but thankful smile on his face.

Natsu instantly decided that he liked this girl.

**_:::Some Time Later...:::_**

Well, eating away all of that girl's money had definitely passed some of the time that Natsu had been hoping to waste. Good.

It had grown dark while he and Happy had feasted on the thank you present from the blonde girl - her name was Lucky or Luppi or something - for accidentally rescuing her from that fake-Salamander's rings or whatever, and it was just about the time Natsu was hoping to begin his return trip to Fairy Tail. He had to time it just right, so that he and the last train for Magnolia - which had left about twenty minutes ago - would arrive at the same time. There were also still a few residents of Hargeon that Natsu was hoping would slip away to bed between now and when he wanted to leave.

He was passing the rest of the time on one of the overlooks the port town offered to tourists and businessmen, leaning against the white concrete. A few giggling women stood off to his left, huddled in a little circle for warmth and privacy as they whispered in hushed tones to one another.

Though, they probably hadn't counted on having someone with hearing like Natsu's nearby. He heard every word, not that he was necessarily trying to, nor wanted to. No, he had learned his lesson about eavesdropping unless the situation called for it. But they were just being _so damn loud _in their whispering, Natsu was surprised that the rest of the townspeople couldn't hear it, too. Stupid sonic hearing.

Though, in this case, it came in handy.

"I really wish I could have gone to Salamander's party," one of the women was lamenting, clutching her hands to her chest and swaying from side to side, as if she too was on the yacht whose lights glinted on the horizon, dancing to unheard music. "But my mother said that his reputation for destroying things isn't something that she wants me being around. Go figure."

The tie of destruction to the name "Salamander" had Natsu on edge instantly. In fact, as soon as he heard the two words, he had nearly screamed out "I didn't do it!" just based on instinct.

There was _no way _there was _another _Salamander that was renown for blowing things sky high. Not without him knowing.

"I don't get it. What party?" another of the women asked, her face plagued by confusion. Obviously, she hadn't been in the town square earlier that day.

"Oh, some big-shot wizard is town. He's called Salamander, because he's this awesome fire mage. And get this: He's from _Fairy Tail." _The name was uttered in a softer whisper than the other words, as if it was some scandalous name instead of the name of the arguably most powerful guild in Fiore. Though, to be fair, Fairy Tail had a reputation almost as violent as Natsu's own. But he didn't care about that.

He turned his eyes to the ocean, a growl bubbling in his throat. His pupils narrowed to slits, his vision sharpening until every detail of the yacht was plain for him to see. "Fairy Tail," he hissed out through grit fangs.

And in that moment, that same scent from earlier hit his nose like a freight train, smashing into his face hard enough to send him reeling away from the balcony rail. It was repulsive, nearly dragging bile right up Natsu's throat, as if he was actually _on _the boat that the scent was coming from. But not only bile rose up his throat, but also an inexplicable feeling of rage, an anger he didn't quite understand. His magic roiled inside him, pushing at the very edges of his control.

And it demanded that he go find the source of the scent, and deal with it properly.

This meant he was going out on a boat.

A rocking platform of wood in the middle of the ocean.

A mode of _transportation. _

_'Son of A BI-'_

**_:::Bora's Yacht:::_**

Flying was _so _much better than being on a train.

Until he landed on the boat, in which case all joys of flying were erased, and Natsu suddenly remembered why he didn't like boats.

His stomach did flips, lashing out with little stomach feet at all other organs within kicking distance, like a kick-boxer gone mad. His esophagus was getting particularly pummeled, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps to keep from vomiting all over the douche bag's yacht.

On second thought, maybe he _would _just throw up.

"Happy, get the girl outta here," Natsu ordered quietly, to which the little blue cat instantly complied. He wrapped his tail around the blonde girl's waist, and carried her up through the hole that Natsu had created when he had quite literally dropped in on the party.

"You idiot," Bora cackled. "She was a wizard! She could have helped you, you pathetic little twit!"

"I don't need anybody's help you beat the hell out of you, yah giant piece of sh-" The boat rocked once to the right, a bit further than normal as it crested a wave, and Natsu was down on the floor, face green, eyes crossed in an attempt to keep himself from spewing chunks. As funny as it would be to ruin the stupid "Salamander's" yacht, Natsu still, strangely, didn't want to experience the sensation that came with the action.

That, and he _so _did not have time to vomit.

Bora's lackeys, though, had no quarrels with attacking him with steel-toed boots, kicking at his unprotected sides and he just laid there. It didn't actually hurt, though from their sneers and cruel laughter, they certainly thought it did. No, Natsu's grunts were him making a valiant attempt to recover from his motion sickness. It wasn't going very well.

"D'ya want one of us to go after the girl, Bora?"

"Idiot," Bora snapped at the lackey that had spoken up. "Don't say my name!" Hah! Natsu _knew _this bastard wasn't actually a Salamander. He in no way deserved such an awesome nickname. "And no. Leave her. One girl won't make much of a difference, especially not a celestial wizard like her." He grinned maniacally as he pulled a small parcel from his cloak, the brown paper used to wrap it folded at awkward angles in order to enclose a decidedly rounded object. "With the girls we have, and _this _little beauty, we'll get _more _than enough to last ourselves for quite a while."

The package didn't sit well with Natsu, not one bit. Just the sight of it made is heart leap into his throat, and the smell...it was definitely the smell that had gotten him so riled up back on land. The moment Bora pulled away one corner of the paper, revealing a smooth, shimmering, blue surface beneath, an odd light shining from within like the reflection of light off of calm water, Natsu knew exactly why it unsettled him.

Gritting his fangs, Natsu pushed himself to his feet. "Give that to me," he demanded, not able to raise his voice much higher than a whisper. Still, Bora heard it, turning to him with a smile of fake pity. "Give that to me _right now."_

"Oh?" Bora grinned, holding up the fist-sized sphere. "This?" He glanced at it, pursing his lips in mock contemplation. "No, I don't think I will."

"Do you even know what that is?" Natsu snarled. He staggered forwards, grabbing onto a nearby wall to prevent himself from just collapsing into it. "Do you?!"

_:Flashback, Unknown Forest:_

_"I don't get it, Igneel," a small Natsu said, digging at the dry earth with dirtied fingers. His nails had been chipped away long ago from trying to break the tough dirt, ground down to nearly nothing by rocks. But the massive red dragon had been insistent that Natsu dig the hole, and quickly. "Why is this thing so important?"_

_Sat next to Natsu was a small, smooth orb, about the size of a grown man's fist. It was a deep, earthy green color, with a solid glow emanating from within, and the surface was polished smooth. There was no way that it could have been created by anybody but a master craftsman, but just the sight of the object made Natsu feel funny. Igneel himself refused to get anywhere near the orb, staying well back from it._

**_"Do you not listen when I try to teach you?" _**_the massive dragon demanded, a sigh on his scaly lips._

_"Of course I listen."_

**_"When it's_ not _about fighting and_**_** magic?"** A sheepish, innocent smile pulled at the corners of Natsu's mouth, and the King of the Fire Dragons sighed once more. **"I thought not. That is deep enough. Place the orb at the bottom of the hole, then bury it."**_

_It seemed like a crime to bury something so beautiful, but the moment the first handful of dirt went over the orb, Natsu couldn't have felt happier. He couldn't explain it at all, but he was still glad. The way the orb made him feel, he couldn't bury that thing far enough._

_**"Do you remember the stories I used to tell you when you were younger?" **Igneel inquired as the rose-haired child continued to bury the orb. **"The ones of the Old Dragon Slayers."**_

_"A little," Natsu said with a frown. "But not much. I couldn't understand much Human back then." He definitely hadn't been able to speak Fioren, that was for sure. That was a skill that had taken a while to develop. But at least he_ had _developed it, thanks to Igneel's teachings. "They hunted dragons for...something. To steal their power. I can't remember how, though."_

_**"Dragons are unique in many ways, but one way is that it is quite simple to steal a dragon's power. Steal their magic." **With the orb under two feet of dirt and counting, Igneel took a few steps towards his foster son. **"Simple in the only sense that it is actually possible, of course. The Old Dragon Slayers would hunt down and kill dragons in order to take their magic."**_

_"But how would they do that?"_

**_"By stealing away a dragon's qrav-otaril." _**_Natsu made a face at the unfamiliar word. If his Fioren was limited, then his dragon language, his Qra, was dismal at best. Honestly, why did Igneel insist on trying to get him to learn a language that even _dragons _hardly spoke anymore? Tradition, or something. Natsu didn't really care all too much. **"Their centers, Natsu. They would cut out their center. Their heart."**_

_Natsu leapt away from the half filled hole, wiping his hands roughly on the new pants Igneel had just stollen from some campers recently. "You mean that thing was..."_

**_"Yes," _**_Igneel said with a grave nod._**_ "There is only one thing to do with a qrav-otaril that was stolen from its owner by the Old Dragon Slayers." _**_He reached a paw forward, and scooped the rest of the dirt back into the hole, patting it down to make it hard and compact again, so as not to be obvious to any passersby. **"Remember this, my son: If you should ever come across a qrav-otaril that was stolen from a dragon, return it to the dragon's element. Never allow a human to keep it in their** **clutches." **_

_Natsu nodded, glancing back to where he knew the orb to be buried as his foster father led him away, back into the woods and their cave. Tears gathered in his eyes at the very __thought of a dragon being slaughtered for such a stupid reason._

_He really hated humans._

_:End Flashback:_

He could practically hear the dragon's soul, glittering like liquid light inside the orb. It was screaming out in agony, writhing in eternal tournament as hands that should never have touched it held it aloft, Bora's dark and malicious magic clinging to its smooth surface.

Natsu bared his fangs and snarled, "Well?!"

"Of course I know what this is," the blue-haired wizard laughed. He tossed the orb up and down, catching it as if he had no cares in the world. His disrespect _really _pissed the rose-haired mage off. "It's my meal ticket."

Bora wasn't the one that had stolen it from a dragon. Natsu could tell that with just a simple smell - he didn't have the scent of dragon blood on him, a scent that was not easily washed away. But that hardly made a difference in Natsu's eyes. Not only had Bora claimed to be the Salamander of Fairy Tail, but he had a qrav-otaril, and he was treating it like a baseball.

He was _so _going down.

Of course, taking him down would have been a hell of a lot easier if he wasn't _on a damn boat. _

**_:::The Shore, Hargeon:::_**

Natsu pulled himself from the flipped wreckage of Bora's yacht. For once, the damage was _completely _not his fault. No, it was the fault of some rogue wave, which had carried the thick scent of Celestial magic. And, considering Natsu didn't know any of that type of magic there was _no way _anybody could blame him for it.

Yeah, someone would still find a way, he just knew it.

He vaguely heard that blonde girl, Lucy, call his name, heard her feet hit the sand as she approached, but he didn't drag his aways away from Bora, away from the bulge in his coat pocket where he had hidden away the qrav-otaril.

"So, you claim to be a Fairy Tail wizard, huh?" Natsu asked.

"What's it to you?" Bora snapped, annoyance lacing his tone. He rolled his eyes. "Go get him," he ordered his men, two of which took off obediently. Natsu ripped the coat Levy had given him from his shoulders, discarding it - it was useless anyway.

"Let me get a look at your face." He smacked away the charging lackeys as if they were made of rice paper, "conveniently" revealing his Fairy Tail tattoo on his upper arm, blazing red in the moonlight. He bared his fangs in a snarl. "My name is Natsu. I'm a Fairy Tail wizard, and I have _never _seen you before."

The wave of fear-scent that suddenly wafted up from Bora and his lackeys was intoxicating, pulling at the rose-haired mage's instincts, demanding that he increase that fear and prolong the scent. He was ashamed of the way he felt - people shouldn't feel joy when they caused fear. But then again, he wasn't exactly a person, now was he? - but the practical high he got from the smell of fear outweighed any feeling of guilt.

No. He didn't want them scared. He wanted them _terrified._ He wanted them to run, to scream, to beg for mercy. He wanted them to be so petrified, that they would drop away like flies, frightened right into their own graves.

Natsu took a singular step forward, reveling when Bora and his men took a collective step back to maintain the already considerable distance between them. "Dirtying the Fairy Tail name was bad enough," he growled, his voice low but still carrying far. He took another step, and Bora's crew retreated in kind. "But having _that," _he pointed a finger at the pocket that contained the qrav-otaril, nail lengthening, hardening, and sharpening, growing so heated the air around it shimmered and quivered. "Disrespecting it..." Natsu shook his head, like a parent dealing with an unruly child. "Unforgivable."

The scent of panic suddenly blossomed in the air, and Natsu had no time to react. Bora threw out his arms, screaming out his spell. "Providence Typhoon!" A flurry of purple flames burst forth from a large magic circle, rolling in the air before it before shooting out. It ignited the wood beneath Natsu's feet as if it was field grass in the middle of the summer. Anybody else would have been screeching in pain at the flames.

But to Natsu, it was a bit chilly out.

"Oh, this is _so _gross," Natsu groaned, upset. He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding as his body was warmed from the inside out, the flames pulled into his stomach and lungs just as if he was breathing in air. "Are you sure you're a fire wizard?" he asked around a mouthful of the flames. "Because these are the nastiest flames I have _ever _tasted." And that was saying something, considering all of the flames that Natsu had had to eat before just to continue his survival. But seriously, these were just gross.

Even though the flames had tasted worse than soggy grass, Natsu was still a bit disappointed when the last ember disappeared past his teeth - fire was so much more satisfying than any rack of ribs he could buy.

Lucy, Bora, and his men looked as if he had just kicked their puppies. It was _hilarious. _

Natsu contracted the muscles in his chest, inhaling deeply and allowing the pressure to build low in his stomach and force an intense heat up towards the back of his throat. He brought his hands up in front of his mouth, creating almost like the barrel of a gun in front of his lips in order to aim better. His control over this one technique was still abysmal at best. Damage he could do easily. Concentration and aiming...eh. Best not stand within thirty feet of his target if he wasn't going to be using his hands as an aiming aid.

Natsu released the pressure built in his stomach, the force pushing itself back up and out of his stomach and lungs, carrying the heated, magic energy along with it. "Fire Dragon's Roar!" he bellowed, right before fire burst forth from his lips, pouring down the concentration funnel his fingers formed to shoot in a rapid, thick, _powerful _stream right at Bora and his men.

They definitely hadn't seen _that _coming.

But Bora was more crafty than he appeared, using his purple flames to carry him out of the way and to safety, leaving his men to be scorched by Natsu's breath attack. And just Natsu had begun to think of him as a stand-up guy.

Natsu's eyes gleamed crimson, reflecting the light of the burning yacht wreckage.

"The pink hair, and the scaly scarf," one of Bora's lackeys, just barely clinging to consciousness, managed to wheeze out through cracked and dry lips. "He's _got _to be the real one!"

"Salamander?!" Lucy cried in disbelief. Natsu tried not to be offended. Did he _really _look _that _weak to everybody? What ever happened to not judging a book by its cover?

The rose-haired mage clenched his fists, flames bursting to life to wrap around his hands like gloves of living fire. His eyes locked with Bora's, the man gulping at the look of raw fury and hunger in the younger mage's eyes.

The scent of the blue orb wafted in the air, drifting like a feather.

He was going to kick this bastard's _ass. _

_**:::Outside Hargeon, Half an hour later:::**_

Lucy had to stop and gasp for air, lungs clawing in the oxygen. Natsu could have kept running, but he had it so much easier than Lucy did - he didn't have to struggling with balancing in heels as they sprinted along, which took up quite a bit of her concentration.

He was thankful for her need to stop to catch her breath, anyhow. She chose a good spot in the woods, next to a wide, shallow river that still managed to rush along at a considerable pace. And while Lucy leaned against a tree and heaved air in and out of her lungs, Natsu crouched by the edge of the water, his fingers of one hand just barely brushing the surface.

He reached into his pocket, withdrawing the blue orb. It no longer screeched out in agony, screams instead faded to quiet murmurs now that it was in contact with his skin and his skin alone, sensing the familiarity of who and what was holding it. He might not have actually _known _the dragon that the qrav-otaril had belonged to, but it didn't matter. Their kinship may not have been exact, but it was close enough.

Natsu gingerly lowered the orb into the rushing river waters, a smile blossoming on his face when the glow within the orb grew brighter, rejoicing as it was returned to its natural element. The river wasn't an ocean, so not the natural habitat of most water dragons, but it was the best he could do now that he had been chased out of Hargeon. Besides, if his nose was correct, the river would carry the orb to the ocean, where it would be forever undisturbed by the humans' greed again.

His small smile was wiped from his face. Was this the fate of all monsters? Slaughtered by humans for some part of their biology, or just on the principle of their birth? Was this his fate? Of course it was. He was just keeping a few steps ahead of his fate, traveling in a mad dash away even as it snapped at his heels, just waiting for the day when he would slip up and stumble, trip over his own feet and land face-first in the mud. This was the fate of all monsters, and he was no exception.

"Natsu?" Lucy called, having recovered from her bout of breathlessness. From her angle, it looked as if Natsu was just crouching next to the river, staring off into space, and not watching as the heart of a dragon disappeared down the river.

The rose-haired mage leapt to his feet. He spun around with a massive smile on his face, and clapped his hands together. "Right! To Fairy Tail! Oh, Lucy, you'll _love _it. Let's hurry there, okay? I have some asses I need to kick. Gray, Krov, Laxus, Gray, Levy, Gray, Erza, Gray...I said Krov, right? His ass is first."

And as they walked down the road, Natsu speaking faster than Lucy could keep up with, Natsu felt his heart jerk, sensed his magic roil inside of him and twist oddly. For a split second, his entire body ached, as if slammed into head-on by a train.

He kept walking, kept smiling.

He was beginning to stumble.

It was only a matter of time before he tripped.

* * *

><p>I HATED THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER.<p>

GAH.

Except the hotcake thing. I thought that was damn funny.

IN OTHER NEWS I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I'M GOING TO HANDLE THE WHOLE "E.N.D AND NATSU" THING. I guess I'll just have to figure that out when I come to it. I've already got a basic idea of what I'm going to do lined up, but... I also want to write a fic about that, now. Because man, that shit's got me so hyped because seriously what in the HELL is happening?!


	3. Chapter 2: Eisenwald

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. HOWEVER. I do own about half of the dragon stuff that goes into this fic. A lot of it I make up on the spot, because I'm one of those people that if I get into planning out the little details for something, that's all I'll end up doing, and writing just a single sentence of actual plot becomes an accomplishment.

visible

I'm skipping the Mt. Hakobe episode thing because there would be no difference between mine and that one. Except maybe that Natsu would try to eat Macao. I could see him trying to eat a Vulcan. ALSO the arc where Lucy get's Virgo's key, because that arc just pisses me off for some reason.

Also: I try to respond to every review I receive. If you get a review reply from a different account than AceWithACase, don't be alarmed. I have sisters that are on here, too, and if they don't log out, I may accidentally reply with their account. Whoops.

To my dear little sister: Did your teacher see you crying DID SHE

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 2<br>Eisenwald**

Erza was coming home soon.

Natsu, while terrified to the point he wanted to die, was also over the moon with excitement.

Everybody else was just plain terrified, and therefore thought he was insane. It was probable.

"Nah man I wanna fight her," Natsu deadpanned to Droy's question on whether Natsu was suicidal, stretching as if he was about to go out and run a mile or one hundred. "She's not going to win this time." He had been trying to learn some swordplay, so that he could supplement his fire spells with that. Unfortunately, all Magnolia had in terms of fighting with anything sword related was a small fencing academy, with less than adequate teachers.

Natsu dropped into his en garde stance, and then promptly tipped over and fell on his face.

So his balance sucked.

Fire and brute force it was, then.

"He's taking this really seriously," Lucy noted from the bar where she had been chatting with Mirajane as the silver-haired girl cleaned a few glasses.

"Natsu likes to challenge people that he knows are stronger than him," Macao said from his own barstool, nursing a whiskey. "It's how he improves his strength quickly. That boy never stops trying to get stronger. Hell, I remember when he used to attack me all the time, only to be taken out with a single spell. Now, I couldn't beat the kid even if I wanted to."

"Wow, really?" Lucy asked. She knew Natsu was powerful, but Macao had defeated nineteen Vulcans all on his own. And he said that he couldn't take down the rose-haired fire-breather? "So...he might be able to beat this woman?"

Macao snorted, shooting whiskey up out of his glass and all over his face. "Nah, the kid's gonna die."

"C'mon, Macao!" Natsu whined, suddenly at the older man's side and draping himself across the bar. "Where's the faith in me, man?"

Elfman lunged up out of nowhere. "Did someone call for a MAN?!"

Natsu whirled his lower body around, kicking the taller mage right in the face without breaking eye contact with Macao. Elfman hit the floor like a sack of bricks.

"No."

Lucy sweatdropped. When she had envisioned Fairy Tail, she had never pictured anything like...like_ this._ The stories her mom had told her of Guilds always were such romantic tales, of mages dedicated to their arts - powerful, yet kind, wise, and giving.

She never mentioned anything about a group of rambunctious teenagers that shouldn't be without supervision for longer than ten minutes.

And the adults were hardly any better.

In fact, looking now at Wakaba, passed out on the floor from alcohol before ten in the morning, the adults were probably worse.

And yet, she loved every minute of it.

Natsu rolled over on the counter, contorting his body in a way that it just shouldn't have bent in. "When is Erza gonna get here?" he moaned to the ceiling. "I'm bored!"

"Then go take another job. She'll be back by the time you're done with it," Gray called from where he sat at his table. Shirtless. Again. Go figure. At least he was wearing pants this time. Gray smirked as he spoke, "Or has your brain become too cooked for you to figure that out on your own?" And as always, Natsu rose to take the bait.

"Oh like I've never heard that one before! Come and say that to my face, numb-nuts!"

"Here we go," Macao grumbled, reaching down to pull a dazed Elfman out of the way before the two teenagers could trample him.

Before the two mages could get any further than landing a few fists on each others' faces, a member of the Guild burst through the door, the member's name escaping Lucy's mind at the moment.

"I-It's Erza!" he screamed, sweat pouring down his face in sheets, his eyes wide and sunken in terror. "She's coming this way!"

For a split second, the entirety of the Guild was frozen, as silent as the forest after a gunshot. And then suddenly, in a cacophony of sound, the Guild members burst into action, screeching in panic and speeding around the Guildhall as if they were on fire. In Natsu's case, he actually _was _on fire, torn between running about in panic, and screaming "FIGHT ME!" in the general direction of the front door.

He apparently decided to just stick with panicking instead of switching back and forth, and took off for the back of the Guildhall.

"What happened to wanting to fight Erza?" Macao called with a great guffaw of laughter.

"I destroyed Hargeon, like, five days ago! She's going to kill me! I'm getting the hell out of here!" If he made a break for it now, he could probably get halfway into the middle of the ocean by the time Erza got back to the Guildhall. Perhaps a sea monster would mercifully eat him. Or maybe he'd be picked up by pirates, and start a proper life of crime.

He just hoped they were nice.

"We don't have a back door, Natsu," Mirajane called, one of the few in the Guild that _wasn't _throwing a complete fit of panic.

Natsu slammed a foot into a blank expanse of wall, the section shattering. "There is now!"

"Well, see, that's just gonna piss of Erza even more!" Macao was near hysterics in laughter now, doubled over as he wheezed to get his words out. "I pity you, kid!"

"Won't she be a little upset about what _you _did, Macao?" Mirajane questioned, still all smiles and sunshine.

Macao fell silent.

He went pale.

And then he slumped forwards in his chair, passed out from fright.

Lucy was beginning to weigh the pros and cons of just breaking down into tears right there.

A loud thump from the doorway was all it took for everybody to freeze and fall silent. It was as if time itself had stopped in the Guildhall, more than one person halted in mid-vault over a table. Gray himself, who had been screeching out, "WHERE ARE MY PANTS?!" slowly slid beneath a table to hide from the cold eyes that raked across the Guild members.

Lucy squeaked.

Stood in the gaping doorway, hair like fire and eyes of stone, was a young woman who's body was built for power, clad in armor with a massive _thing _at her side. It looked like a horn, decorated with fine metals and gems. The thing looked stupidly heavy, but the woman, who had obviously been carrying it, wasn't even sweating.

Without so much as a word of warning, the woman began to lay into just about everybody in the Guildhall, reprimanding them for whatever bad news she had heard on her travels. Why did you break this thing, how did you manage to lose your shirt three times in ten minutes, and _who for the love of God subscribed to this junk mail thing again?_

Her gaze suddenly snapped over to Lucy, whose back went ramrod-straight, her breath catching in her throat.

She was going to get in trouble for damaging that mansion, she just _knew _it.

The red-haired mage walked right over to her, and stuck out a hand. "You're new. I'm Erza, Erza Scarlet."

Well. That wasn't what Lucy had been expecting.

"Um...Lucy. Nice to...meet you?" the blonde Celestial Mage ventured cautiously, gingerly shaking the offered hand.

"I've heard a bit about you. Very impressive." She didn't yell, didn't reprimand her even once. Lucy felt like she really _might _cry, but in relief instead of fear. "Now," Erza said, the friendly demeanor she had adopted in order to speak to Lucy melting away to be replaced with her previous, cold expression. "Where might I find Natsu?"

**_:::Some Time Later:::_**

Natsu whimpered, stretching out on a table in the Guildhall.

He hadn't gotten as far as he had hoped before Erza had found him.

And now he was sore, tired, _and _sopping wet. Whose brilliant idea had it been to jump in to the ocean to get away from a person that could _fly?_

...oh.

"Should have just taken it like a man," Gray said smugly, grinning from around lips swollen from a punch to the mouth. Who knew that an armored fist would hurt so much? Gray. Gray knew.

"...I will eat you alive, Gray." Natsu pointed over his shoulder, not needing to move or look to know that Elfman was lunging up behind him. "Don't you even start."

Erza plopped down on the bench next to the rose-haired mage, who stared at her suspiciously and scooted a bit further away from her.

"Contrary to popular belief, I didn't come back home just to yell at all of you," she said, taking a small bite out of her slice of strawberry cheesecake. "There's a job that I need your help on."

Natsu straightened up immediately. "A job?" he parroted. "What kinda job?"

"One of the Dark Guilds is acting up again," Erza explained. "Eisenwald. I can't go up against an entire Guild on my own, official or not. I need the strongest mages that I can find in order to take them on..."

"Strongest mage, huh?" Natsu said with a grin. "Well, not to brag, but-"

"...which is why I wanted to request that you and Gray aid me."

Natsu and Gray locked eyes, heated glares that practically threw off sparks when they connected from across the table. They slowly turned back to Erza, forcing large, friendly smiles onto their faces.

Acting buddy-buddy for even _ten minutes _around Erza was exhausting, and now they had to go on a job together?

What fun.

**_:::On a DAMN TRAIN:::_**

Natsu curled up around his own stomach, arms crossed over his abdomen in a futile attempt to keep his own innards from rebelling against him.

"Why couldn't we have walked?" he whined, a wordless groan following. Happy sat near his head, patting and rubbing his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. Though the action was appreciated, it did little good.

Natsu couldn't decide if his motion sickness was a ridiculous thing or not. By the laws of nature, something like him shouldn't even be small enough to fit into a train car, but evolution and survival had made a smaller size a necessity, and therefore allowed him to ride a train. But even so, it was still unnatural. So then it wasn't ridiculous that the moment he touched anything to do with transportation, he may as well have been made of glass.

But _hell yes _it was ridiculous because it was a damn _train _and transportation shouldn't be the thing that was capable of defeating a creature such as himself.

Damn trains.

Natsu was actually stupidly grateful to Erza when she socked him in the stomach, the sudden whoosh of air leaving his lungs knocking him right out. He would still have a bone to pick with her later, but the moment his vision went black, and his stomach stopped trying to become a gymnast, he could do nothing but sing praises to the Queen of the Fairies.

Until, of course, he was rudely awoken by a boot to the face.

What had his father used to say in situations such as these?

Ah, yes.

"WHO DARES TO KICK THE FACE OF THE ONE AND ONLY NATSU?!" Okay, so he changed it a bit, but the point still stood. Who kicked him?

Answer: A pineapple.

It wasn't actually a pineapple, of course, but that was the only thing that Natsu could think of when he took one look at the man's hair. The black hair was pulled back in a high, tight ponytail, the natural spike of the hair making his head look like a slightly deformed and _very _discolored tropical fruit. His eyes were narrow and dark, and clipped onto his left ear was a black earring.

He was unnervingly familiar, for some reason. The fact that Natsu couldn't remember where he had seen the guy's face before was troublesome.

No matter. This bastard smelled too much like darkness for Natsu's own liking, a package tucked away at his hip tugging oddly at the rose-haired mage's senses. It was too long and thin to be a qrav-otaril, but the feeling of dread and the instinctive need to get the hell away from the thing wasn't too different.

"Who in the hell are you?" Natsu demanded, struggling to keep his feet under him as the train rocked and shuddered along.

No, better question: Where in the _hell _were his teammates?

"Who I am doesn't matter, little Fairy," Pineapple-Head sneered, leering down his nose at the younger mage in a way that he probably meant to be intimidating. "You'll never stop Eisenwald from completing their goal!"

What was with bad guys just attacking poor, napping people, and then spouting off their plans? Was it part of the training every evil guy went through, or was it ingrained into their genes? Seriously, if they guy would have just _kept walking _instead of kicking Natsu in the damn face, he would have been able to keep going, and Natsu would have been none the wiser.

But now Natsu was awake, Natsu was nauseous, and Natsu was _pissed._

"Uh huh," Natsu grunted with a roll of his eyes, right before he launched himself at Pineapple-Head. Or, more specifically, that odd package at his side that was giving off all sorts of bad vibes.

Pineapple-Head was more nimble than Natsu had initially given him credit for, lunging out of the way before Natsu could collide with him. Still, his nails sliced cleanly through the cloth wrapped around the thing at his side, baring to the light a narrow expanse of old, worn wood, void of splinters from decades of hands brushing across the surface.

Natsu's hand, though, burned. The fingers that brushed against it felt like they had been dunked into ice water, right into something so cold that it reminded Natsu what it felt like for someone who wasn't a fire mage to actually be burned. It was a magic so dark, so thick with malice that it froze and burned anything more magic sensitive that came into contact with it.

And it smelled like the type of magic geared solely towards killing someone.

_'You've got to be kidding me. Where are the others?' _Natsu groaned in his thoughts, spinning around as best as he could to face Pineapple-Head and his Magic Stick of Frozen Fire head-on.

Just outside the window, something glinted in the distance, quickly speeding along past the train. Four presences occupied that object, presences that _should _have been on the train.

How in the name of all the was holy did they manage to get outside of the train?

Never mind that now. Pineapple-Head was there, that stick clutched in his hand with the cloth piled on the floor. Okay, so not a stick. Apparently, it was a flute, the literal head of the instrument taking the shape of a skull, teeth stretched in an eerie grin, eyes pits of inky black. Just looking at it sent a shiver down Natsu's spine.

The eyes - two naturally placed and one on the forehead - suddenly lit themselves from within, dull pinpricks of toxic violet flickering to life in the depths of the eye sockets. Pineapple-Head apparently did not notice the sudden stare that the flute had Natsu pinned with, instead going on some rant or another about power and Dark Guilds versus Official Guilds.

A whisper drifted through the train car, spoken on a frequency that only Natsu could hear.

_"Qravoq-ter."_

Natsu's muscles coiled, and he threw himself out the window.

**_:::Train Station:::_**

Natsu rubbed at his back, right where he had connected with the speeding car after he had thrown himself from the train. That thing had been moving a whole lot faster than he had originally gauged.

While Erza went and argued with the knights that were guarding the entrance to the train station that they needed to get into, Natsu cracked his spine, took one look around, and then began to scale a building adjacent to the station.

"Uh, Natsu?" Lucy called up to their rose-haired companion, who had recovered from being hit and then carried by a car a whole lot faster than she had thought he would. She had expected to have to lug him around at least for another ten minutes before he pulled himself together. "Where are you going?"

Natsu glanced over his shoulder, pausing in shimmying up a pipe. "Uh, the train station?" he responded, as if the answer was obvious.

"The train station is in the other direction, dumbass," Gray sighed, keeping an eye on Erza as the attempt at speaking to the knights evolved into an all-out shouting match. The ice mage winced. He did _not _envy the knights, not one bit.

Natsu pointed a singular finger at Gray for a moment, a smirk forming when the smell of burning rubber reached his keen nose. His work done, he resumed scrambling up the side of the building.

Gray frowned, the smell of something burning tickling his nose. He looked down and lifted a foot, half of the sole of his shoe staying stuck to the pavement while the rest followed his foot, connecting him to the stone via multiple thick, gooey strings of half-melted rubber.

"Son of a- YOU'RE DEAD, YOU MOUTH-BREATHER!"

"I felt more threatened when a kitten hissed at me!" Natsu called back to the black-haired mage, glancing back and forth from his side of the roof, to the other. It was a little short, but it would have to do.

Lucy paused in her efforts to help Gray get unstuck from the pavement - an effort that was quickly proving futile - to look up at the edge of the building Natsu had scaled. "Hey, Natsu? What're you-" She quickly shut up and her jaw dropped, as Natsu went sailing off the roof of the building.

Happy palmed his own forehead.

"I could have carried you, you know!" the blue cat called, wings sprouting from his back so that he could flutter after his best friend.

Natsu _wanted _to inform Happy that his way was so much faster, but he barely got the first syllable out before he sped right over the balcony railing of one of the train station's floors, and slammed, face-first, into a wall.

"See, that's why I should have carried you!"

"Idiot," Erza muttered, doing her best to ignore Lucy's wordless squeaking and Gray's hysterical cackling behind her. "He's with us," she informed the knight she had been "negotiating" with. She paused. "Unless he just destroyed that wall. In which case, we don't know him, we've never seen him before, and feel free to arrest him."

Natsu peeled himself from the wall that had oh so graciously halted his flight, a massive grin spread across his face. He didn't care that the wall now had a very permanent Natsu-shaped imprint - as far as he was concerned, he had gotten into the train station, and that was all that mattered.

He had a Pineapple and an instrument to find.

The scent of dark magic wasn't too hard to find. The problem was that it was quite literally _everywhere _in the train station.

It wove in and out of rooms, filtered out of lazily blowing vents. The filtration system meant to keep the typically crowded train station cool and supplied with fresh air was moving the scent all over the place. So Natsu had taken to just kicking down every door he could find. He'd find the source of the scent - that damned flute - eventually.

And then he was going to burn the thing, hopefully before it work up and began speaking again.

Happy already knew what the flute had said to Natsu - the rose-haired mage had quietly clued him in on the car ride to the train station. The blue cat wasn't any happier than Natsu, his eyes wide in fright. Not only was the flute alive, but it was sentient _and _old enough to know the language that it had spit out.

That didn't really sit well with either of them.

"It smelled like death magic," Natsu muttered to Happy after the seventeenth door had been knocked right off of its hinges. "Really old stuff. Older than me." Happy looked a bit surprised at that. "Probably as old or older than Igneel, too."

"Older than Igneel?" Happy parroted. "Isn't he four hundred or something?"

"That's what he always said," Natsu said with a shrug. He kicked another door. Nothing but another empty office. Damn. "I think he lost count a long, _long _time ago, though, so who really knows?"

The duo came to two sets of stairs. One went up, the other down. Natsu's eye twitched, the stairwell doing nothing to help him with tracking the scent. "Maybe I should have started on the ground floor." So maybe throwing himself up a few floors _hadn't _been such a good idea. Eh, Natsu would just blame Gray for the idea, anyway. Stupid Gray. "What do you think, bud? Up or down?"

Happy pulled a fish out of his knapsack. "Heads, we go up. Tails, we go down." Natsu nodded in agreement. Happy took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then flipped the fish in the air. It circled end over end, and as it reached its apex and then began to fall, Happy lashes out, and caught the fish's head in his mouth, eyes still closed. "Up we go, then!" he said around the mouthful of salmon.

Natsu swept up the stairs, a malicious grin pulling at the corners of his mouth and baring white fangs. He was _so _ready to kick some ass.

The third floor was, unfortunately, void of any asses.

As was the fourth.

And the fifth, which just so happened to be the roof.

"Okay seriously what the hell." Natsu peered over the edge of the building, and at the dozens of little humans milling about a quarter-mile from the train station, held at bay by the knights.

Alas, no Pineapples or death flutes.

Son of a bitch.

The rose-haired mage stormed back down the stairwell, steam quite literally coming out of his ears. His never ending luck had, of course, led him in the opposite direction of any fun.

Unless, of course, Erza had gotten it wrong, and Eisenwald hadn't actually taken an entire building hostage. Or, at least, not _this _building.

Natsu made his way towards the entrance, preparing a nice rant, when he was bowled over by a certain barefoot ice mage.

Gray sneered. "Look what the cat dragged in!"

While Happy profusely denied dragging Natsu anywhere, because that was _rude, _Natsu leapt back to his feet and threw his arms in the air.

"What the hell, guys?! There aren't any Eisenwald jerks in here! Erza, I thought you said that they were going to use the speaker system here and kill everybody with sticks."

"Well, at least you were half-listening," Erza muttered while pinching at the bridge of her nose. "Eisenwald is here. All of the members were just downstairs, by the front door, which is what _normal _people use to enter a building."

"Hey, I used a door, and it _was _on the front of the building," Natsu stated matter-of-factly. "It was just on the second floor."

"Yes, well, you missed all of the fighting downstairs," Gray said with a roll of his eyes and a mutter of "useless." "Erigor ran somewhere up here."

"Eri-who?"

"Erigor. The bad guy with Lullaby. Wind mage. Were you not listening to me on the way here in the car?"

"Not really."

Before Erza could take a step forward to smack Natsu right across his grinning face, the entire building shook as if caught in an earthquake. Windows further down the hallway shattered, blown inwards with great howls of wind.

"The hell?!" Gray barked, brushing shards of glass from his hair.

Natsu lunged to the nearest window, practically throwing himself out of it. He gaped. "You've got to be kidding me!"

He took off at a sprint, the others following behind in confusion. He led them back up the stairs, to the second floor, and then out the doors to the balcony that he had used to enter the building.

A few feet from the balcony railing, a wall of solid, howling wind whipped around the building, nothing beyond it visible as anything but a warped shadow.

The scent of magic bent by madness clung to the wind, along with a second scent that Natsu had spent the last while hunting for. That damned flute. "So I'm guessing their plan _wasn't _to use the speaker system to kill everybody," Natsu sarcastically remarked, gesturing towards the wall, and the hazy outline of a cluster of people not far from the building, all very much alive and in the middle of a great panic.

"No," Erza said. "We learned of their true motive. They plan to use the flute on the Masters of the Official Guilds, all of which are gathered for a meeting."

"What?!" Natsu snapped, spinning around to fix the red-haired girl with a hard stare. "Why didn't you stop Erigor, then?!"

"You think we didn't try?" Gray barked in reply, stepping between Natsu and Erza to break the glare-off that was evolving between them. "There were a lot of guys, Natsu, and Erza was already low on magical energy thanks to the magic-mobile. Erigor slipped off in the chaos, _okay?_"

"No, not okay. Because now Erigor's gotten a head start." Natsu turned to the violent barrier, and threw himself head-first at it. He already knew just by looking at the thing that just jumping at it wouldn't do a thing, but he, in his infinite wisdom, decided to try anyway.

And wind, when solid, apparently hurt like a _bitch_.

It felt as if he had severe case of road rash, and he was supremely grateful that he had turned his headbutt into a punch, otherwise he might have ended up missing half of his hair. His knuckles were rubbed raw from just a few seconds of contact with the barrier as it was. Steam rose from the injuries, cauterizing them from the inside out. It'd have to do until he could find some actual bandages and ointment.

He grit his teeth, and glared at the wind. Natsu planted his feet, inhaled a deep breath, and forced the sudden pressure up and out of his throat. The breath of fire did nothing to the wind, the rabid air whisking the fire away and snuffing it out seconds after the fire collided with it.

_'Alright, if that doesn't work...'_ Natsu lit his fist ablaze, and leapt at the barrier. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" he snarled, driving his fist into the wind. For a second, he felt it giving under his knuckles, bending and shredding under the intense heat and the force behind his punch.

But then it shoved him backwards, snapping back into its original form like rubber, and sending Natsu head-first into the wall behind him. He growled in annoyance - who knew that wind could piss him off so much?

"Natsu, stop!" Erza ordered when he leapt back up, his feet burning in preparation for a barrage of flaming kicks. "That won't work. Erigor's magic is too strong."

"Like hell it is!" Natsu muttered, but allowed the fires on his legs to fizzle out all the same.

"We need a seal-breaker," Erza thought aloud, a hand going to rub at her chin and lower lip as she spoke. Her brow furrowed. "The seal on Lullaby was broken when we got here, so he _has _to have a mage adept at unraveling them _somewhere _in his guild. And while wind magic can give the user the ability to fly, it would take someone of at least S-Class-level strength to fly with _two _people at an acceptable rate, so he has to still be in the building somewhere..."

"We're looking for a seal-breaker?" Natsu asked, snapping Erza out of her thoughts. "Why don't we ask someone from Eisenwald?"

"Do...do you _honestly _think someone from Eisenwald would just help us?" Lucy asked, the look on her face one of disbelief. Natsu grinned, and pounded a fist into his awaiting palm.

"They will if I hit them a few times," he replied, and Lucy sweat-dropped. "I haven't been able to punch anybody all day, and if I don't soon I'm bound to get a bit twitchy."

By the time Natsu returned, there was a massive hole dug right into the floor. He was dragging Pineapple Head along behind him. The idiot had gone and gotten himself injured somehow. Also, Natsu's luck was starting to look up since Pineapple Head _was _the seal-breaker, apparently. Shaking him around a bit had gotten that answer right out of him.

But the hole in the floor was more concerning to Natsu at the moment.

"...I'm missing something again, aren't I?"

"Happy here," Lucy said, jerking a thumb to the aforementioned cat, "apparently stole Virgo's key."

"You stole that giant maid's Gate Key?" Natsu asked his flying blue companion. The cat nodded. Natsu grinned. "Good job, buddy." A small girl, with blank eyes and bubblegum-pink hair, popped her head out of the hole in the ground. One sniff of the air told Natsu that the girl was indeed Virgo, just much smaller and with a more ascetically pleasing face. She had been _seriously _odd looking before.

Still, he had liked her a bit better before. Not that he said anything about it - Erza had ground into his brain long ago that you _never _comment on a woman's looks unless it was a positive comment.

So, instead, he greeted her.

"Hi, Virgo," he said with a raise of his hand. The girl nodded back to him respectfully. "Wanna tell me why there's a hole dug through the ground? Because that's damage to the building. Damage that _I _didn't do, so I'd better not get punished for that, dammit."

"Well, the maid lady can dig _really _well, and since the barrier is made out of wind, I thought that, maybe, she could dig us a way out of here!" Happy said, the expression on his face living up to his name, if not surpassing it.

Natsu blinked.

He walked to the edge of the hole, and glanced down it. Fresh, cool air was wafting up from the tunnel that went straight down, and then curved off to the side about twenty feet down.

Natsu blinked again.

"So, you mean to tell me that I just spent, like, _ten minutes _tracking down this prick, and you guys got us out of this mess by digging a hole in the ground?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Natsu sighed, and then practically spiked Pineapple Head into the ground, as if he was a ball instead of a heavily injured human.

"MOTHERFU-"

* * *

><p><strong>*unabashed cackle over a certain reference thrown in*<strong>

**I couldn't help myself and I refuse to apologize.**

**As for that random language that's had a few appearances so far - "qrav-otaril" and "qravoq-ter" are the only appearances, as far as I'm aware - it's a language that'll prove slightly important later on. And once it becomes a bit more prominent, then I'll be posting translations at the end of chapters. It's loosely based off of an alien's language I made up for an original book I write on and off. It has a different name, and I'm still deciding if I want to make it more like the English alphabet for this, and leave it the way it is, in which case letters like K and C aren't a thing, but letters that are "anglicized" to Æ, SH, II, TH, and the like _are. _Once the language becomes more prominent in the story, if you ever want an explanation to how the language works, just send me a PM or something and I'll give you a crash course. **

**Reviews are candy and I am a sugarholic. **


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